I heard on the radio, KINK, that "America Votes" has set up ballot collection boxes around Portland. This is the orgainization run by Sproul and Associates that has been caught shredding democrat voter registrations in numerous states, including here in Oregon. It receives over $600,000 directly from the GOP. An elections officer was quoted saying that these drop stations were not official. However, neither the station or the county elections officer warned that this is part of the "black ops" campaign to deny the right to vote to democrats and steal the election.

Unfortunately, there has been some confusion thanks to some bad reporting of the story that a Republican group called America Votes was destroying Democratic registrations failed to include the most critical fact. In addition to stealing people's right to vote, these scumbags also stole the name of our organization.

America Votes is actually a coalition of 33 progressive groups doing voter registration, education and mobilization in every one of the 17 swing states. We are labor unions, environmentalists, women's rights advocates, civil rights groups, and a range of other progressive issue advocates working to increase citizen participation in democracy. Here in Oregon, we have registered -- really registered -- more than 78,000 new voters in this election.

It's because of this good work that the Republican National Committee paid almost three-quarter of a million dollars to an Arizona firm to screw with us. They told people that they were America Votes, hijacking our name to cover their tracks as they literally destoyed the registration cards of people who didn't register Republican. In addition to being profoundly immoral, that is flat out illegal, and the Attorney General has launched an immediate criminal investigation. In the meantime, there is no remedy for the people who were defrauded and disenfranchised.

For more info, I suggest doing a google search under Sproul and Oregon.

As part of our very legitimate efforts to get out the vote, we do have unofficial ballot drop sites set up with reputable businesses like Powell's, Grand Central, New Season's, Music Millenium and Lucky Lab. These sites are secure, monitored, and regularly checked. When they are picked up, the ballot boxes are delivered directly to the county elections offices for emptying.

Please help to correct this misunderstanding wherever you can, as we have literally thousands of people going door-to-door in the last week of this election turning out the vote. These real America Votes volunteers have every reason to be proud of the work they are doing to change this country for the better.